The heart is the center of a person's circulatory system. The left portions of the heart, including the left atrium (LA) and left ventricle (LV), draw oxygenated blood from the lungs and pump it to the organs of the body to provide the organs with their metabolic needs for oxygen. The right portions of the heart, including the right atrium (RA) and right ventricle (RV), draw deoxygenated blood from the body organs and pump it to the lungs where the blood gets oxygenated. These mechanical pumping functions are accomplished by contractions of the heart. In a normal heart, the sinoatrial (SA) node, the heart's natural pacemaker, generates electrical impulses, called action potentials, that propagate through an electrical conduction system to various regions of the heart to cause the muscular tissues of these regions to depolarize and contract. The electrical conduction system includes, in the order by which the electrical impulses travel in a normal heart, internodal pathways between the SA node and the atrioventricular (AV) node, the AV node, the His bundle, and the Purkinje system including the right bundle branch (RBB, which conducts the electrical impulses to the RV) and the left bundle branch (LBB, which conducts the electrical impulses to the LV). More generally, the electrical impulses travel through an AV conduction pathway to cause the atria, and then the ventricles, to contract.
Tachycardia (also referred to as tachyarrhythmia) occurs when the heart contracts at a rate higher than a normal heart rate. Tachycardia generally includes ventricular tachycardia (VT) and supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). VT occurs, for example, when a pathological conduction loop formed in the ventricles through which electrical impulses travel circularly within the ventricles, or when a pathologically formed electrical focus generates electrical impulses from the ventricles. SVT includes physiologic sinus tachycardia and pathologic SVTs. The physiologic sinus tachycardia occurs when the SA node generates the electrical impulses at a particularly high rate. A pathologic SVT occurs, for example, when a pathologic conduction loop forms in an atrium. Fibrillation occurs when the heart contracts at a tachycardia rate with an irregular rhythm. Ventricular fibrillation (VF), as a ventricular arrhythmia with an irregular conduction, is a life threatening condition requiring immediate medical treatment such as ventricular defibrillation. Atrial fibrillation (AF), as an SVT with an irregular rhythm, though not immediately life threatening, also needs medical treatment such as atrial defibrillation to restore a normal cardiac function and prevents the deterioration of the heart.
Implantable cardioverter/defibrillators (ICDs) are used to treat tachycardias, including fibrillation. To deliver an effective cardioversion/defibrillation therapy, the cardioversion/defibrillation energy is to be delivered to the chambers of the heart where the tachycardia or fibrillation originates. A cardioversion/defibrillation pulse delivered to a wrong chamber may be ineffective in treating the tachycardia or fibrillation and may cause unnecessary discomfort to the patient and shorten the ICD's battery life. When the atrial rate of depolarizations (or contractions) is substantially different from the ventricular rate of depolarizations (or contractions), the atrial and ventricular rates provide for a basis for locating where the tachycardia originates. However, events such as premature contractions, undersensing, and oversensing affect measured atrial and ventricular rates but are unrelated to the origin of tachycardia. Therefore, there is a need for improving accuracy in locating the origin of tachycardia based on measured atrial and ventricular rates.